Nvidia’s $2 Billion Computer Chip May Make AI Much More Powerful

t their annual GPU Technology Conference this week, Nvidia unveiled a powerful and expensive new computer chip, which CEO Jen-Hsun Huang says can perform deep learning neural network tasks 12 times faster than their previous best product. To power this speed, the Tesla P100 is packed with fifteen billion transistors – about three times more than their previous top-end chip. All this progress came at a cost of $2 billion in research and development.
Nvidia is a powerhouse in artificial intelligence hardware.
The Santa Clara-based company’s high-powered graphics processing units (GPUs) have helped drive the technology over the past few years, leading some analysts to ask, “Where are all the chip firms not named Nvidia?” With it’s proven success, deep learning – the branch of machine learning that enables systems to identify complex patterns in massive amounts of data by passing information through additional layers of simulated neurons – is where the company has concentrated their efforts.

At their annual GPU Technology Conference this week, Nvidia unveiled a powerful and expensive new computer chip, which CEO
Jen-Hsun Huang says can perform deep learning neural network tasks
12 times faster than their previous best product. To power this speed,
the Tesla P100 is packed with fifteen billion transistors – about three
times more than their previous top-end chip. All this progress came at a
cost of $2 billion in research and development.

Nvidia is a powerhouse in artificial
intelligence hardware.

The Santa Clara-based company’s high-powered
graphics processing units (GPUs) have helped drive the technology over
the past few years, leading some analysts to ask, “Where are all the chip firms not named Nvidia?” With
it’s proven success, deep learning – the branch of machine learning
that enables systems to identify complex patterns in massive amounts of
data by passing information through additional layers of simulated
neurons – is where the company has concentrated their efforts.

Chips serve as the physical “brain” for
AI software, which tends to be limited by hardware’s computing power.
The more complex a system task, the more robust its hardware must be.
P100 may offer software companies unprecedented progress thanks to a
significant boost in available power. Researchers at Facebook,
Microsoft, and Baidu – whom Nvidia has granted early access to P100
technology – can expect to see the capabilities of their AI systems
accelerate as tappable computing power multiplies.

Along with their new chip, Nvidia showcased what Huang called “one beast of a machine” – the DGX-1,
a supercomputer equipped with eight P100 chips, preinstalled with
deep-learning software.

The company calls the device “the world’s first
deep learning supercomputer…engineered top to bottom deep learning…”
Though the supercomputer comes with a $129,000 price tag, Nvidia hopes
to promote their product to research-based organizations and
institutions by giving them to teams at University of California,
Berkley, Stanford, New York University, and MIT for trial runs.

As a
leader in GPU manufacturing, Nvidia has a head start on
other manufacturers. It also has the capital needed to devote to the
development of hardware as robust as the P100. As companies like Google,
Facebook, Microsoft, and Baidu continue to take deep learning even
deeper, Nvidia aims to position itself as the go-to provider of the
powerful hardware to help drive the next innovations.

credit: Nvidia

t their annual GPU Technology Conference this week, Nvidia unveiled a powerful and expensive new computer chip, which CEO Jen-Hsun Huang says can perform deep learning neural network tasks 12 times faster than their previous best product. To power this speed, the Tesla P100 is packed with fifteen billion transistors – about three times more than their previous top-end chip. All this progress came at a cost of $2 billion in research and development.
Nvidia is a powerhouse in artificial intelligence hardware.
The Santa Clara-based company’s high-powered graphics processing units (GPUs) have helped drive the technology over the past few years, leading some analysts to ask, “Where are all the chip firms not named Nvidia?” With it’s proven success, deep learning – the branch of machine learning that enables systems to identify complex patterns in massive amounts of data by passing information through additional layers of simulated neurons – is where the company has concentrated their efforts.

t their annual GPU Technology Conference this week, Nvidia unveiled a powerful and expensive new computer chip, which CEO Jen-Hsun Huang says can perform deep learning neural network tasks 12 times faster than their previous best product. To power this speed, the Tesla P100 is packed with fifteen billion transistors – about three times more than their previous top-end chip. All this progress came at a cost of $2 billion in research and development.
Nvidia is a powerhouse in artificial intelligence hardware.
The Santa Clara-based company’s high-powered graphics processing units (GPUs) have helped drive the technology over the past few years, leading some analysts to ask, “Where are all the chip firms not named Nvidia?” With it’s proven success, deep learning – the branch of machine learning that enables systems to identify complex patterns in massive amounts of data by passing information through additional layers of simulated neurons – is where the company has concentrated their efforts.